Think.
Think, me.
How to get out of this crisis.
It's fine. It'll be fine. Eto just has something reddish showing up in her right eye, that's all. A chronic condition, maybe? If I explained it as some rare disease that causes this sort of thing...
I tried hard to come up with a good way out, but the cold part of my brain rejected it.
Do you really think something like that would work? Look at your father's face. No excuse is getting past that look.
Damn it, don't give up. You've never given up even when you wanted to until now. There has to be a way out.
There isn't. You already know what your father's "hate" is, and you're still doing this?
Shit! Then what am I supposed to do? If this keeps up, we're one second away from a knife fight.
Forget about persuading Father. Right now, protecting Eto comes first.
Eto... right, I have to protect Eto.
If this goes on, Eto will be...
"Koma."
One cold, dry voice carried the force to sweep every thought away at once.
I was afraid to look Father in the eye.
Because the moment our eyes met, the version of Father I remembered might disappear completely.
"I'll say it again. Put 'that' down. Now."
Ha... So the moment the thing he was just calling his "child" a second ago turns out to be a Ghoul, he changes his tone and starts calling her "that," like she's an object? Very like Father, I suppose.
I wanted to let out a dry laugh, but my lips were too tense to open, so nothing came out.
No good.
Maybe with Father at any other time, but not with Father when he'd gone blind with rage over a Ghoul. There was no persuading him.
Facing him head-on was insane, too.
He was a veteran Ghoul Investigator in his sixteenth year on the job, while I was just an ordinary civilian boy who'd even been feeling under the weather lately. There was no way I could be his match.
Then there was only one path left.
"Okay, run."
First, hide Eto somewhere safe, then try talking or whatever.
My eyes went to the front door. Roughly six or seven meters. Not a distance I couldn't cover if I committed to it, but Father being in the middle was the one flaw.
Thud.
Clatter, clatter, clatter!
An open steel briefcase hit the floor with a heavy sound.
He must have realized what I was thinking from the look in my eyes.
Something like dark red metal rapidly assembled itself in Father's hands.
Even though I was seeing it for the first time today, I knew that butcher's knife, the kind that looked like it could slaughter a bull, was the Ghoul-subduing weapon used by Ghoul Investigators: a [Quinque].
The giant blade, large enough to cover Father's upper body in one sweep, pointed this way.
Was it the chill radiating from a weapon made to hunt Ghouls? Eto clutched my collar tightly with a frightened face.
Rumble...
Thunder rolled overhead, as if warning that the rain was about to come down in earnest.
"That you're her father is a lie, too. At least, I've never heard of a child being born between a Ghoul and a human."
"Maybe you just don't know. There could be more than you think."
"I'm not in the mood for word games with you."
"I'm not joking, either. There really are tragic love stories between Ghouls and humans, you know."
"Stop saying disgusting things."
I tried to distract him somehow, but it wasn't working at all. Forget going out through the front door. I'd have to find another way.
Rolling my eyes left and right to quickly assess my surroundings, I hooked my right foot over a folding table and kicked toward Father.
"Useless—"
Crack!!
I heard the sound of the wooden table being cleanly split apart by the [Quinque], but I couldn't confirm it. My body was already opening the window and throwing itself beyond it.
"What!?"
I could feel Father's shocked voice receding at high speed.
I hugged Eto tightly to my chest as I experienced that dizzying acceleration with my own body.
"Damn it! I never thought I'd actually use this plan!!"
It was the final resort among the measures I'd prepared for Father's surprise visit: give up on everything and flee with Eto only. The so-called Thirty-Six Stratagems—run for your life!
Now that I'd actually thrown myself into it, I wanted to punch the me from a few days ago who came up with this plan.
It was the movie's fault. Watching an action movie and then thinking I could do something like that was the problem.
Crash, bang, bang, bang!!!
Right below the south-facing window I'd jumped from stood a fairly large garden tree.
I gritted my teeth and endured the branches battering my back like clubs. Then I hit the garden floor as if it were the final blow, taking such a heavy impact that I coughed the air out of my lungs and couldn't move for a while.
"Waaah~! Waaaah~!"
Through the warped world, as if my face had been shoved into jelly, I heard Eto crying.
Her voice was clear, so she hadn't been hurt, but she must have been badly startled.
I shook my head hard and forced myself back to my senses.
Like a baby who couldn't even walk yet, I crawled along the ground, and once my awareness returned enough, I planted a hand on the floor and got up.
Throb...!!
"Tch... So it doesn't work like in the movies after all."
A branch had lodged itself in the lower right side of my clothes, tearing the fabric and exposing small cuts. It was stuck in pretty deep, so I figured it'd be better not to pull it out.
After making myself swear I'd never think stupid thoughts while watching action movies again, I whipped my heavy legs into motion and tried to run.
Boom!!!
A heavy impact landed directly behind me.
I thought, No way... but then I figured that man could absolutely do it, and without even looking back I sprinted.
Just as expected, Father had jumped down from the five-story building after me and landed in the garden.
People who've done rough work really are different. Unlike me, who'd tried to imitate a movie badly and ended up a mess, he'd come down with no visible injuries and a steady stance.
Father yanked out the [Quinque], which he'd apparently used to soften the landing, from where it was buried more than halfway into the ground, and shouted, "Stop right there, Koma!!"
"No!!!"
Did you think rebellion ended in middle school? Not a chance. I'll show you what peak rebellion looks like.
Shaaahhh!!!
The rain began to pour in earnest. For someone already running and now carrying a baby with a weak immune system, it was absolutely unwelcome weather.
I grabbed part of my already shredded shirt and tore it away, wrapping Eto so she wouldn't get soaked.
I could hear Father chasing after me.
He was almost fifty, but the body he'd honed as a Ghoul Investigator showed no sign of age-related decline at all.
At this rate, he'd catch me. So I came up with a trick and headed toward the shopping district.
Even though it was raining, there were quite a few people on the shopping street walking around with umbrellas. Not as many as I'd hoped, but better than none at all.
As I cut through them and ran, people gasped and scattered to make room.
"It won't be easy to swing a [Quinque] around where there are people, will it?"
A Ghoul Investigator is still a public servant, after all.
He wouldn't fail to understand that openly brandishing a [Quinque] and swinging it around in a crowded place would be a problem, and his target was a baby. To people who didn't know the circumstances, it would never look good for Father to be hurting Eto.
In other words, this place was advantageous to me. Here, I needed to either hide Eto or create a standoff where I could talk while somehow guaranteeing her safety.
There was just one thing I'd overlooked.
...Father's obsession with Ghouls was more dangerous than I'd imagined.
"...?"
When I no longer heard Father chasing me, I turned back in confusion.
He was gone.
"What? Did he back off for a moment because there are too many eyes on us?"
That was what I thought when I stopped running.
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KWA-BOOM!!!!!!!!
Right in front of me.
Like a blood-soaked butcher's knife, a dark red blade flew in like an arrow and smashed into the concrete floor before embedding itself there. It was definitely Father's [Quinque].
I broke out in goosebumps.
This [Quinque] had flown on a line that cut straight through the path I'd been running, through the space where Eto was in my arms.
If I'd taken even one more step without realizing it, that butcher's knife would have cruelly pierced Eto...
"Ghk...!!!"
Shuddering at the horrifying thought, I tried to pull the [Quinque] out.
I wanted to hide it somewhere so Father couldn't use it, but it was driven too deeply into the concrete. Even if I had managed to pull it free, its weight would have made it impossible to run properly.
And yet he'd openly used a killing strike in a place where people could see him! Father, do you have any sense at all!?
Grab!
"!?"
At the sensation of something yanking the back of my neck, I clenched my teeth.
My plan had been turned against me. I'd chosen a place crowded with people to restrict Father's actions, but he'd instead used the crowd to hide himself and ambush me.
Father, who had come up behind me without my noticing, grabbed me and swung a fist.
Pow!!!
...How long had it been since I'd been hit by Father?
The impact, as if it were shaking the contents of my skull, left me unable to think for a while. I collapsed onto the rainwater-slick concrete, and the branch in my back dug in even deeper.
Through my blurred vision as I crawled and groaned on the ground, I saw Father pulling out the [Quinque].
His gaze fell on me, a gaze that seemed capable of turning the rain still pouring down into ice.
"Hand her over."
"...."
I wanted to say no, but the shock had stolen my voice.
Instead, I held Eto even tighter in my arms to show my resolve.
Father's brow twitched as anger surfaced. He reached out to forcibly tear Eto away from me.
In that instant, I pretended to keep crawling while secretly throwing the chunk of concrete I'd hidden in my hand at Father.
"!?"
Startled by the ambush, Father took a step back.
Without missing the opening, I kicked off the ground and ran into the crowd that had gathered after hearing the commotion.
"Tch!"
After wiping the concrete grit from the corner of his eye with the rainwater, Father twisted his face and clicked his tongue as I vanished among the people.